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Blizzard Speaks on Legendary Warcraft Film

At this week's Hollywood and Games Summit, Blizzard VP of game design Rob Pardo discussed the challenges Blizzard and movie producer Legendary Pictures are facing with the upcoming Warcraft feature film.

BOOM widget 113894 At this week's Hollywood and Games Summit, Blizzard VP of game design Rob Pardo (pictured left) discussed the challenges Blizzard and movie producer Legendary Pictures are facing with the upcoming live action Warcraft feature film, which was announced last year.

"Any time you translate from one medium to another, you have to focus on whatÂ’s right for the medium," Pardo said, reports Gamastura.

To explain, he elaborated on the difficulties Blizzard encountered when adapting Warcraft from its initial RTS setting to the MMO gamespace. "Even though Warcraft was our own IP, it was still being translated from
a different gametype," Pardo revealed. "We still found ourselves handcuffing ourselves to certain conventions that made sense for a strategy game, but didnÂ’t make sense for a MMO.

"You have to stay true to the IP, but you canÂ’t be hamstrung by the details. You have to have a strong partnership though Â– thatÂ’s whatÂ’s happening with us and Legendary," he continued. "WeÂ’re supplying quite a bit in terms of story and script development. WeÂ’re concentrating on the world and making sure that the experience and feel of the IP is there."

Earlier this month, it was unveiled that Legendary would be handling the production of a film based off Blizzard's Diablo property as well.

"I have very strong feelings--from the movie side--that making movies based on games just because they sold well is a really bad idea," Legendary Pictures CEO Thomas Tull revealed during a separate panel at the summit. "I think some of the stuff that makes a game translate well into a movie is a good story. If there's a lore, if there's a road and story and a world that's been created, and characters that are interesting in a way that's more than just point and shoot."

"Before we even did a deal we had to find a group that would do something we all could be proud of," Pardo said of Blizzard's decision to team with Legendary. "We got a real good sense that they had a certain amount of geek to them, as we all do."